I've got what I consider to be a poor memory. Or, at least, I try not to rely on it too much (perhaps that's why it's no good?). But anyway, I have a hard time remembering what the current speed limit is when driving. On my drive home yesterday from my holiday travels I got an idea for a helper. I was thinking, if you make a felt cover for the top half of your steering wheel (say), and indicated on it mileages from 25-65 in increments of 5, then with another felt ring you slide around to the appropriate place, you'd have a handy way to remember the speed limit. As long as you remember to update the position of the ring when you see a new speed limit sign, of course. I suggest felt, because it seems to me that two layers of felt might hold eachother together mostly, while still allowing some freedom of motion.
I dunno, maybe it's a poor idea. But as of right now, I like it. Plus when I tell my mom about it, it'll give her something fun to do (she sews, rather a lot).
Of course, it's only a temporary solution until the speed limit signs communicate wirelessly with a sensor in our cars that changes a heads-up display on the dashboard which always indicates the current speed limit. Unless, of course, self-driving cars come around before that, and the issue becomes moot.
Showing posts with label deep thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deep thoughts. Show all posts
Monday, December 29, 2008
A Year of Running
Yeah, yeah, everybody is doing end of the year review posts, or posts looking forward to the next year. But I wanted to mess around with the Google Charts API, and figured my running mileage data was as good a data source as I'd find. So here's the chart I made with my monthly miles:
The lightest blue indicates months with less than 100 miles run, and the one darkest (August) was the only month I passed 200 miles.
Perhaps I should have waited through the next two days to post this, in case I decide to run. But even if I go both remaining days in December, I probably won't go more than 8 miles total. That won't affect my totals too much. Currently I've chalked up 1259 miles this year, occupying a little over 168 hours (= 1 full week). That puts my average pace at just slower than 8 minute miles. I thought about making another chart for my average pace each month, but don't feel like going through the computations. Another useless stat: I went for 178 runs, putting my average run length at just over 7 miles. That's an extra 250 miles and 28 runs over last year.
After August I was looking to crack 1500 miles this year, and was on pace for it. In September I ran my first 'ultra', though really the shortest ultra, a 50k. At that point, my running was looking pretty good, and I was thinking about a sub-3 hour marathon in Richmond in November, and doing a 50 mile run in the spring. However, my research was, as my advisor put it, 'stagnating'. Around the same time I met a girl (lucky me :)), and these factors put a 2 month halt in my running. I'm working on getting back into it, though still at a lesser volume. My current goal is the Charlottesville marathon in April, for my third consecutive year. I have no delusions of beating last year's 3:13, but I'm still hoping for sub-4 (had a 3:55 my first year). Guess we'll see.
Perhaps I should have waited through the next two days to post this, in case I decide to run. But even if I go both remaining days in December, I probably won't go more than 8 miles total. That won't affect my totals too much. Currently I've chalked up 1259 miles this year, occupying a little over 168 hours (= 1 full week). That puts my average pace at just slower than 8 minute miles. I thought about making another chart for my average pace each month, but don't feel like going through the computations. Another useless stat: I went for 178 runs, putting my average run length at just over 7 miles. That's an extra 250 miles and 28 runs over last year.
After August I was looking to crack 1500 miles this year, and was on pace for it. In September I ran my first 'ultra', though really the shortest ultra, a 50k. At that point, my running was looking pretty good, and I was thinking about a sub-3 hour marathon in Richmond in November, and doing a 50 mile run in the spring. However, my research was, as my advisor put it, 'stagnating'. Around the same time I met a girl (lucky me :)), and these factors put a 2 month halt in my running. I'm working on getting back into it, though still at a lesser volume. My current goal is the Charlottesville marathon in April, for my third consecutive year. I have no delusions of beating last year's 3:13, but I'm still hoping for sub-4 (had a 3:55 my first year). Guess we'll see.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A Teaching Statement
Such as it is, I have prepared a reflective (use caution in direct sunlight) teaching statement. I'm neither a deep thinker, nor a proficient writer, so I can't convince myself that the result is any good. Either way, here's what I came up with:
I have no idea why I bother teaching.
I can convince myself that many of my students will need to know mathematics in their future careers. My science students clearly need mathematics, but so do the business students. The fine arts are a little harder to justify, so perhaps pawn it off on "general education." Numeracy, people claim, is practically as important as literacy, even if it doesn't get the same attention (in fact, some people pride themselves on their innumeracy). If nothing else, mathematics courses are a requirement at the University, and I have enough of an understanding of the subject to try to get others through it.
So my issue with teaching isn't that the content isn't important.
My issue with teaching is that, in this connected age, there are effectively unlimited sources for the knowledge that I am supposed to cover in a calculus class. Certainly there has always been the textbook, and I love for my students to read it. But now, online, there are more places to learn calculus than one could possibly use. Entire lectures and individual problems and short snippets get posted as videos to YouTube. Wikipedia contains more information than any one person can know (and it's constantly growing!). I also must compete against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who not long ago started posting all course materials online (for free, accessible by anybody).
So why would a student bother coming to my class? Anything I'll be covering in class could be found online, from the relative comfort of a dorm room. It's not my job to tell students when to think about calculus, so I have no attendance policy. Who am I to tell them when they should be learning? If they are motivated enough to learn the material on their own, I don't want to frustrate their ambitions by making them come to class.
It is this sense of competition that drives my lectures. When planning lectures, I make sure to use examples that aren't covered in the book. I also try to find as many "fun" examples and extra problems as possible. Students don't necessarily want to look at other resources to learn the material I will be teaching. Even motivated students might not take that step. Students might not know where to look on Wikipedia for interesting mathematics that is, at the same time, easy enough to digest without having taken lots of math classes. It's my job to show these things to my students.
It's lucky, then, that mathematics is so fascinating. Surprising amounts can be boiled down and understood without having spent years taking math classes and reading math textbooks. This is my job. Anybody can present material, and cover examples. I think it is important to go further, to find more interesting examples, and historical tidbits. I always hope to show my students some of the beautiful things in mathematics.
During the times I am doing fun examples and presenting material that isn't strictly necessary for the class it is easy to be an excited speaker. However, there is something interesting to be found in nearly every example, and I try to keep my enthusiasm high throughout every lecture. Judging from course feedback, my students feed off this energy, and are more motivated to learn the material. If I can create motivated learners, who start seeing interesting things in the content I teach, then all of those external resources are more likely to be accessed and dug through. All the material in world is worth nothing if students aren't interested in looking at it. It is my hope that I can encourage some to embrace this interest.
I have no idea why I bother teaching.
I can convince myself that many of my students will need to know mathematics in their future careers. My science students clearly need mathematics, but so do the business students. The fine arts are a little harder to justify, so perhaps pawn it off on "general education." Numeracy, people claim, is practically as important as literacy, even if it doesn't get the same attention (in fact, some people pride themselves on their innumeracy). If nothing else, mathematics courses are a requirement at the University, and I have enough of an understanding of the subject to try to get others through it.
So my issue with teaching isn't that the content isn't important.
My issue with teaching is that, in this connected age, there are effectively unlimited sources for the knowledge that I am supposed to cover in a calculus class. Certainly there has always been the textbook, and I love for my students to read it. But now, online, there are more places to learn calculus than one could possibly use. Entire lectures and individual problems and short snippets get posted as videos to YouTube. Wikipedia contains more information than any one person can know (and it's constantly growing!). I also must compete against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who not long ago started posting all course materials online (for free, accessible by anybody).
So why would a student bother coming to my class? Anything I'll be covering in class could be found online, from the relative comfort of a dorm room. It's not my job to tell students when to think about calculus, so I have no attendance policy. Who am I to tell them when they should be learning? If they are motivated enough to learn the material on their own, I don't want to frustrate their ambitions by making them come to class.
It is this sense of competition that drives my lectures. When planning lectures, I make sure to use examples that aren't covered in the book. I also try to find as many "fun" examples and extra problems as possible. Students don't necessarily want to look at other resources to learn the material I will be teaching. Even motivated students might not take that step. Students might not know where to look on Wikipedia for interesting mathematics that is, at the same time, easy enough to digest without having taken lots of math classes. It's my job to show these things to my students.
It's lucky, then, that mathematics is so fascinating. Surprising amounts can be boiled down and understood without having spent years taking math classes and reading math textbooks. This is my job. Anybody can present material, and cover examples. I think it is important to go further, to find more interesting examples, and historical tidbits. I always hope to show my students some of the beautiful things in mathematics.
During the times I am doing fun examples and presenting material that isn't strictly necessary for the class it is easy to be an excited speaker. However, there is something interesting to be found in nearly every example, and I try to keep my enthusiasm high throughout every lecture. Judging from course feedback, my students feed off this energy, and are more motivated to learn the material. If I can create motivated learners, who start seeing interesting things in the content I teach, then all of those external resources are more likely to be accessed and dug through. All the material in world is worth nothing if students aren't interested in looking at it. It is my hope that I can encourage some to embrace this interest.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
OpenID Revisit
A while ago I wrote a joyful post about OpenID and how I thought it was great. Admittedly, since then I have hardly used my OpenID identity (any of them). I've remained positive about the idea, and keep hoping I'll find/make the time this summer to do enough webpage building sorts of things to get to a point where I would accept OpenID login.
So I've been brought down a bit by the article "The problem(s) with OpenID". It's a little lengthy, and apparently largely a wrap-up of many other posts from many other places. Still, it seems like a fairly important article to read.
Also today I listened to a podcast from April concerning DataPortability with guest Jonathan Vanasco, and found it to be pretty interesting. In particular, it made me think more about the idea of having many different faces online, e.g., something like a MySpace versus LinkedIn account. And, as coincidences go, just yesterday Mr. Vanasco wrote a post: "Data Sportability". All quite interesting, and I'm looking forward to the promised 'upcoming' posts.
I wish I was more thoughtful about security and privacy and things. The web sure is an exciting place. Articles like these tend to make me wonder what I should be doing with my life. There are smarter people than me, that work harder than me, all over the place, getting all sorts of amazing things done. What sort of contribution can I actually make? Where should I direct my energy, so that a contribution actually can be made?
So I've been brought down a bit by the article "The problem(s) with OpenID". It's a little lengthy, and apparently largely a wrap-up of many other posts from many other places. Still, it seems like a fairly important article to read.
Also today I listened to a podcast from April concerning DataPortability with guest Jonathan Vanasco, and found it to be pretty interesting. In particular, it made me think more about the idea of having many different faces online, e.g., something like a MySpace versus LinkedIn account. And, as coincidences go, just yesterday Mr. Vanasco wrote a post: "Data Sportability". All quite interesting, and I'm looking forward to the promised 'upcoming' posts.
I wish I was more thoughtful about security and privacy and things. The web sure is an exciting place. Articles like these tend to make me wonder what I should be doing with my life. There are smarter people than me, that work harder than me, all over the place, getting all sorts of amazing things done. What sort of contribution can I actually make? Where should I direct my energy, so that a contribution actually can be made?
Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Problem with Posting
There are too many venues, that's the problem. I have no audience, and still 'publish' in 3 places: blogger, twitter, and I'll go ahead and consider my reader shared items. Of course, with the recent updates to reader shared items, what is the point in posting to twitter anymore (was there every a point?)? I can post random notes to my shared items without any associated link... that's what I do on twitter (I know, I know, you can't follow anybody in reader... unless you sign up for their shared feeds). On the flip side, I can post links on twitter, but why bother if they are shared through reader? And I don't do any real amount of multimedia (pictures, video) posting, but I can't imagine things would be better if I did. And this is just my own individual decentralized posting. What about the people I follow, the random networks they're all on, and services they use. We're all on different IM/blog/microblog/social networks, and it's a mess.
Everyone (e.g., here's two) is abuzz today (I guess yesterday now, sorry) about myspace joining dataportability. And it is good news. I think it's only a first step (one of many first steps being made), which is clearly valuable. Nothing will apparently come out for a few weeks, but I'd still like to think about what's next (since I have been anyway). Perhaps something like the following:
From my main page I can post new material, manage my friend networks, maintain my profile, manage access to my material and profile, and read all of the material people have sent me. Let's start with friend networks. I've set up lots of little networks for myself (instead of signing up to whichever ones online) - some friends are in several of the networks, some are people I've never met (imported from my twitter/blog followers). Some are people I'll only communicate with via email, others are more instant message sorts of friends. Some are people that I'll never hear from, but who've decided to read what I've got to say. Others are the opposite, people I read but will probably never communicate to. The university has set up a network for the class I'm teaching, as well as a network for the faculty and staff. I've got lots of information about some of these people (close friends, online family), and little more than a username for plenty more (blog followers). I've got all of my contacts, at all levels, accessible in one place.
When I want to post something new, I distinguish it as a noted link, or a global tweet, or a local tweet, or a blog post, or a geophysical post (or...?), or I pick an individual out to send a message (email, IM? same thing). So my random twitter followers only get to see my global tweets (and noted links, or links to new blog posts I make, if I want to allow that), while my closer friends might see my local tweets (as well as global ones). Generally I put random 'what I'm doing' tweets in the local bit, and random 'interesting thought' (to me) tweets in the global bit. I've also set things up so that the world can see my blog posts and global tweets (though if I wanted to make an exception for any individual post, it'd be easy to do). My geophysical posts go out to people physically nearby (I've set it up to broadcast to listeners in c'ville, since that's where I almost always am. More advanced (mobile) users can hook things up with their phone to broadcast to local listeners wherever they are). I don't use this feature much, but I hear it's popular. Sometimes when I get bored I take a look at other people's local messages. Or post a message asking if anybody is up for a run this afternoon, or some frisbee.
So how do people see what I've posted? You must have noticed that in the above I only talk about generating content, not presentation. When somebody goes to my base address (like sumidiot.blogspot.com) my server points them to the suggested presentation means (for example, a link to a blogger template), which is something I've customized (added various widgets, changed the layout, etc). But since my data is all stored in standardized formats, it is quite likely that individuals accessing my page have set up their browsers to ignore my suggestion (actually, probably set things up to not even bother asking), and will use their own template. This is a natural extension of the sorts of post-production scripts people already run (greasemonkey, ad-block plus).
People can see my global posts without any further interaction on my part, because I've set things up to automatically accept requests to join my global feeds (there's nothing stopping people from joining the rss feed for my blog, or tweets). When somebody signs up, it shows up in my list of friends, under my global followers. This list is mostly only used as a distribution list for when I write something new, but I also feel like it's polite to then sign up for my followers feeds (most of the time). When I meet new people, I can add them to my various friend networks and they will then be able to follow my posts, if they want. If somebody annoys me, I can remove them from the list, and they won't get my (vitally important) updates. I can even block them from signing up again.
What's great about this system is that it handles all of my online communication. Emails, IMs, tweets, blog postings, feed subscriptions all come and go through this personal communication channel. I mean... IMs are just rapid-fire emails, emails are just individually-audienced blog posts, RSS feeds are emails you don't respond to (but you are, of course, encouraged to make insightful comments concerning). Now I've got one system to both send and receive all of it.
Perhaps some people will have this set up through some company. Like amazon hosts everything for you, or myspace (given recent events). These companies will provide nice ways to interface with all of your data, but the better ones also make it easy to bundle up your data and take it to a different service. Open source projects will also provide these services, but you'll still have to find a host (surely there is an analogy to setting up a wiki using twiki, or a bulletin board using phpbb).
And one day, perhaps a nice cloud will come along, and I can have my setup there, so I don't have to worry about porting my data. Semantic web technologies will determine the content of my posts, and little autonomous agents will wander around the cloud, telling people that are interested in such content that I've posted something new. And dually, I'll have little agents wandering around gathering up things they think I'll find interesting (instead of wading through rss feeds for blogs that don't have a focused topic), and sending little links back to me. They'll not stop at forwarding pages, but will send me directly to the original author (so instead of looking at the digg page for an article, I just see the article (and perhaps a note it made it to digg)). The comments generated by anybody, anywhere, will all (mod privacy) be accessible to me. My little agents are turning up more and more interesting items every day...
Everyone (e.g., here's two) is abuzz today (I guess yesterday now, sorry) about myspace joining dataportability. And it is good news. I think it's only a first step (one of many first steps being made), which is clearly valuable. Nothing will apparently come out for a few weeks, but I'd still like to think about what's next (since I have been anyway). Perhaps something like the following:
From my main page I can post new material, manage my friend networks, maintain my profile, manage access to my material and profile, and read all of the material people have sent me. Let's start with friend networks. I've set up lots of little networks for myself (instead of signing up to whichever ones online) - some friends are in several of the networks, some are people I've never met (imported from my twitter/blog followers). Some are people I'll only communicate with via email, others are more instant message sorts of friends. Some are people that I'll never hear from, but who've decided to read what I've got to say. Others are the opposite, people I read but will probably never communicate to. The university has set up a network for the class I'm teaching, as well as a network for the faculty and staff. I've got lots of information about some of these people (close friends, online family), and little more than a username for plenty more (blog followers). I've got all of my contacts, at all levels, accessible in one place.
When I want to post something new, I distinguish it as a noted link, or a global tweet, or a local tweet, or a blog post, or a geophysical post (or...?), or I pick an individual out to send a message (email, IM? same thing). So my random twitter followers only get to see my global tweets (and noted links, or links to new blog posts I make, if I want to allow that), while my closer friends might see my local tweets (as well as global ones). Generally I put random 'what I'm doing' tweets in the local bit, and random 'interesting thought' (to me) tweets in the global bit. I've also set things up so that the world can see my blog posts and global tweets (though if I wanted to make an exception for any individual post, it'd be easy to do). My geophysical posts go out to people physically nearby (I've set it up to broadcast to listeners in c'ville, since that's where I almost always am. More advanced (mobile) users can hook things up with their phone to broadcast to local listeners wherever they are). I don't use this feature much, but I hear it's popular. Sometimes when I get bored I take a look at other people's local messages. Or post a message asking if anybody is up for a run this afternoon, or some frisbee.
So how do people see what I've posted? You must have noticed that in the above I only talk about generating content, not presentation. When somebody goes to my base address (like sumidiot.blogspot.com) my server points them to the suggested presentation means (for example, a link to a blogger template), which is something I've customized (added various widgets, changed the layout, etc). But since my data is all stored in standardized formats, it is quite likely that individuals accessing my page have set up their browsers to ignore my suggestion (actually, probably set things up to not even bother asking), and will use their own template. This is a natural extension of the sorts of post-production scripts people already run (greasemonkey, ad-block plus).
People can see my global posts without any further interaction on my part, because I've set things up to automatically accept requests to join my global feeds (there's nothing stopping people from joining the rss feed for my blog, or tweets). When somebody signs up, it shows up in my list of friends, under my global followers. This list is mostly only used as a distribution list for when I write something new, but I also feel like it's polite to then sign up for my followers feeds (most of the time). When I meet new people, I can add them to my various friend networks and they will then be able to follow my posts, if they want. If somebody annoys me, I can remove them from the list, and they won't get my (vitally important) updates. I can even block them from signing up again.
What's great about this system is that it handles all of my online communication. Emails, IMs, tweets, blog postings, feed subscriptions all come and go through this personal communication channel. I mean... IMs are just rapid-fire emails, emails are just individually-audienced blog posts, RSS feeds are emails you don't respond to (but you are, of course, encouraged to make insightful comments concerning). Now I've got one system to both send and receive all of it.
Perhaps some people will have this set up through some company. Like amazon hosts everything for you, or myspace (given recent events). These companies will provide nice ways to interface with all of your data, but the better ones also make it easy to bundle up your data and take it to a different service. Open source projects will also provide these services, but you'll still have to find a host (surely there is an analogy to setting up a wiki using twiki, or a bulletin board using phpbb).
And one day, perhaps a nice cloud will come along, and I can have my setup there, so I don't have to worry about porting my data. Semantic web technologies will determine the content of my posts, and little autonomous agents will wander around the cloud, telling people that are interested in such content that I've posted something new. And dually, I'll have little agents wandering around gathering up things they think I'll find interesting (instead of wading through rss feeds for blogs that don't have a focused topic), and sending little links back to me. They'll not stop at forwarding pages, but will send me directly to the original author (so instead of looking at the digg page for an article, I just see the article (and perhaps a note it made it to digg)). The comments generated by anybody, anywhere, will all (mod privacy) be accessible to me. My little agents are turning up more and more interesting items every day...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
We are the Cloud
There's been lots of news lately about "cloud computing" and suches. Google's out there with their new app engine, Amazon has their web services, Microsoft probably has something (I tend to ignore them :)). And there's also the data portability organization. It's all got me wondering.
It's no news that people are posting huge amounts of data on the web. Photos on flickr, text on blogs and sribd, videos on youtube, etc. etc. etc. The idea (my understanding of the idea, anyway) of data portability is that we should control our data. If we post a photo on flickr and then want it, instead, elsewhere (just on our local computer, on some other photo service), we should have the ability to do so. Web services should interact, like if we want to order printed copies of those photos from some other service, we should be able to tell flickr to let the other service grab the picture. There are things in place for this sort of thing to happen (oauth, companies opening up APIs for their services).
It seems to me, though, that there might be another way for us to store our data "in the cloud", and allow web services or individuals to access it, once we give them permission. The other project I have in mind when I've been thinking about this is bittorrent. I'm trying to envision a decentralized cloud, where we can store and interact with (and allow others to do so as well) our data. So instead of having our data with google or amazon (even if we have 'control' over it there), I'm wondering about maybe running a client on my computer (kinda like a bittorrent client), from which I can store and access files among the other people running the client. In order to use the client, I agree to set aside some of my hard drive space, and I'm then allowed to store some related amount among the others using this system. Rednundancy and privacy and encryption all built in, of course. So my computer dies, but the data is all stored in the wild, and I can retrieve it. The folks doing openid have a decentralized system, and I can't help but hope lots of the same ideas work for storing files in this cloud.
There's also no reason there should only be one client for this system. There are lots of bittorrent clients. The system is really the architecture and protocols. Then there probably should be some people keeping track of "trusted clients" or something, because if I'm storing my data on other people's computers, I want to know they aren't doing things with it that they shouldn't be.
I know none of that was precise, well thought out, or well described. I know that I don't know enough right now to even pretend that I can take this idea very far. Issues of privacy and safety and copyright and... I don't have answers to. My hope is that there is a kernel of a worthwhile idea here, and that somebody in a position to do something about it finds it.
It's no news that people are posting huge amounts of data on the web. Photos on flickr, text on blogs and sribd, videos on youtube, etc. etc. etc. The idea (my understanding of the idea, anyway) of data portability is that we should control our data. If we post a photo on flickr and then want it, instead, elsewhere (just on our local computer, on some other photo service), we should have the ability to do so. Web services should interact, like if we want to order printed copies of those photos from some other service, we should be able to tell flickr to let the other service grab the picture. There are things in place for this sort of thing to happen (oauth, companies opening up APIs for their services).
It seems to me, though, that there might be another way for us to store our data "in the cloud", and allow web services or individuals to access it, once we give them permission. The other project I have in mind when I've been thinking about this is bittorrent. I'm trying to envision a decentralized cloud, where we can store and interact with (and allow others to do so as well) our data. So instead of having our data with google or amazon (even if we have 'control' over it there), I'm wondering about maybe running a client on my computer (kinda like a bittorrent client), from which I can store and access files among the other people running the client. In order to use the client, I agree to set aside some of my hard drive space, and I'm then allowed to store some related amount among the others using this system. Rednundancy and privacy and encryption all built in, of course. So my computer dies, but the data is all stored in the wild, and I can retrieve it. The folks doing openid have a decentralized system, and I can't help but hope lots of the same ideas work for storing files in this cloud.
There's also no reason there should only be one client for this system. There are lots of bittorrent clients. The system is really the architecture and protocols. Then there probably should be some people keeping track of "trusted clients" or something, because if I'm storing my data on other people's computers, I want to know they aren't doing things with it that they shouldn't be.
I know none of that was precise, well thought out, or well described. I know that I don't know enough right now to even pretend that I can take this idea very far. Issues of privacy and safety and copyright and... I don't have answers to. My hope is that there is a kernel of a worthwhile idea here, and that somebody in a position to do something about it finds it.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Exciting Times
While I may sometimes forget it, and get lost in day to day trivia, this seems to me an exciting time to be alive. Of course, I wonder if that is something people always think. Throughout much of recent history, has there generally been some segment of (basically average?) people who thought they were living in exciting times?
So why now? Well, the primary reason I think now is exciting is because of the technical advances. I love computers and playing with them and seeing what they can do, and dreaming about what they will soon do (and what mine, in particular, will do. Lots of the things I want already exist). I eagerly anticipate more (at least slightly more) ubiquitous (wearable) computing. I'm looking forward to having a pair of glasses in which I can see a 'computer screen', and be able to easily interact with while I walk around.
At a slightly more reserved (less fun) level, I just finished reading 'Geekonomics' (which I encourage you to read), and I enjoyed it. It presents interesting historical case studies, and I also learned a little about economics and our legal system. The subtitle is 'The Real Cost of Insecure Software', and the book provides convincing evidence that change is eminent in the software engineering field. The code we depend on is largely dangerous, with all of its security holes, and something needs to happen soon to address this issue (says the book). The net result will be higher quality software all around (again, says the book), and I like the sounds of that. So that, too, is exciting.
This summer CERN gets ready to make black holes in France and Switzerland, and that's exciting. I've seen claims (today's reminder came from a link off digg) about them creating things with temperature comparable to that of the Sun. So perhaps all of this future tech I anticipate... the world won't be around for. But that, too, is somehow exciting - being around for the end of the world, that's gotta be worth something.
And in just over 20 years (depending on who you ask), 'The Singularity' will... well... we don't know. That's the point.
Exciting times indeed.
So why now? Well, the primary reason I think now is exciting is because of the technical advances. I love computers and playing with them and seeing what they can do, and dreaming about what they will soon do (and what mine, in particular, will do. Lots of the things I want already exist). I eagerly anticipate more (at least slightly more) ubiquitous (wearable) computing. I'm looking forward to having a pair of glasses in which I can see a 'computer screen', and be able to easily interact with while I walk around.
At a slightly more reserved (less fun) level, I just finished reading 'Geekonomics' (which I encourage you to read), and I enjoyed it. It presents interesting historical case studies, and I also learned a little about economics and our legal system. The subtitle is 'The Real Cost of Insecure Software', and the book provides convincing evidence that change is eminent in the software engineering field. The code we depend on is largely dangerous, with all of its security holes, and something needs to happen soon to address this issue (says the book). The net result will be higher quality software all around (again, says the book), and I like the sounds of that. So that, too, is exciting.
This summer CERN gets ready to make black holes in France and Switzerland, and that's exciting. I've seen claims (today's reminder came from a link off digg) about them creating things with temperature comparable to that of the Sun. So perhaps all of this future tech I anticipate... the world won't be around for. But that, too, is somehow exciting - being around for the end of the world, that's gotta be worth something.
And in just over 20 years (depending on who you ask), 'The Singularity' will... well... we don't know. That's the point.
Exciting times indeed.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Bubbles
My last post about bubbles got my mind wandering, so instead of doing something worthwhile, I thought I'd press on here.
In my previous post I mentioned the little tech bubble I live in online. In any bubble, there is some notion of common knowledge. I am, for some reason, attracted to the idea not necessarily of finding the common knowledge of other bubbles, but even just what other bubbles there are.
Take, for example, running. Everybody knows that runnings is something some people do (even if its not really understood why they would want to). I expect most people know about marathons as well. But I wonder how many people know about ultramarathons - runs of 50 or 100 miles or more? And it isn't just one or two people in the world that do this, but some slightly larger bubble. They have organized events and all. I didn't know about this until just a few years ago.
Sometimes I think I wish I didn't know about the knowledge of other bubbles. For example, I have a friend who is into 'Kate Spade' and 'Vera Bradley' handbags. I wish I could truthfully admit that I didn't know what those names are at all. But since interacting with this other bubble, I have acquired that knowledge. I'm not better off for it. Of course, lots of the time, interacting with other bubbles is more rewarding. I think it is a good mindset to want to explore other bubbles, to expand your horizons.
So what other bubbles are there, specifically what niche bubbles? How do I find them? How big qualifies as a niche bubble?
I must be getting tired.
It occurs to me that perhaps I should use twitter (finally, a use) for posts like this. The low character count limit would help stop my rambling and babbling.
Bed time.
In my previous post I mentioned the little tech bubble I live in online. In any bubble, there is some notion of common knowledge. I am, for some reason, attracted to the idea not necessarily of finding the common knowledge of other bubbles, but even just what other bubbles there are.
Take, for example, running. Everybody knows that runnings is something some people do (even if its not really understood why they would want to). I expect most people know about marathons as well. But I wonder how many people know about ultramarathons - runs of 50 or 100 miles or more? And it isn't just one or two people in the world that do this, but some slightly larger bubble. They have organized events and all. I didn't know about this until just a few years ago.
Sometimes I think I wish I didn't know about the knowledge of other bubbles. For example, I have a friend who is into 'Kate Spade' and 'Vera Bradley' handbags. I wish I could truthfully admit that I didn't know what those names are at all. But since interacting with this other bubble, I have acquired that knowledge. I'm not better off for it. Of course, lots of the time, interacting with other bubbles is more rewarding. I think it is a good mindset to want to explore other bubbles, to expand your horizons.
So what other bubbles are there, specifically what niche bubbles? How do I find them? How big qualifies as a niche bubble?
I must be getting tired.
It occurs to me that perhaps I should use twitter (finally, a use) for posts like this. The low character count limit would help stop my rambling and babbling.
Bed time.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Web Portals
I seem to recall hearing a lot about 'web portals' a while back. Everybody wanted to be your 'start page' so they could have more 'eyeballs' (and thus more ad revenue, or whatever). I never found any of them to be where I wanted to start online. My start page is always about:blank. Anyway, it seems that I don't hear so much about this any more, though I'm not sure why.
Even not so recently, I knew that, essentially, google was my web portal. When I hopped online, I had some goal in mind, and knew that google could get me there. Recently, google's reader has become at least as important in my online experience. If I don't have some specific information I want to look up, the only page I think to visit is reader (and gmail I guess). Instead of going out to the web, rss and atom feeds have let me bring the web to me (Chris's comment, if I recall). When I've run out of new feeds, I'm at a loss of what to do, or where to go. There's lots of good stuff online, but if it isn't in a link from some feed, or so, I won't notice it. Perhaps that's ok. It is quite easy to suffer from information overload online, and there is plenty that I'm supposed to be doing.
Anybody else have similar online habits? Or am I doing it wrong? Fail? I guess part of my question is: what exactly is 'surfing the web'? Stubling around random webpages with a browser extension (= productivity killer)? Or just following links from pages that I visited with a specific goal in mind?
It seems like my style of surfing the web, by browsing my feeds, is, at least vaguely, dangerous. In a book I read recently (I think it was 'Ambient Findability' though it could have been 'Convergence Culture', both of which I enjoyed), the author pointed out the idea of the online experience being a great big echo chamber. I only see the part of the web I agree with, basically. Unless I specifically go searching for something contrary to my views (political or religious, e.g.) I am not likely to really test my ideas and assumptions. I won't grow, intellectually, but will instead just reinforce whatever ideas I already have, because they are all I read about.
What I feel like I notice even more is just the sense of being in a bubble. In my little bubble, everybody is keen on 'Web 2.0' (if not the name), the semantic web, open standards and APIs, tech, tech, tech. Everybody has heard of the same things as me (essentially). Things like OLPC, Linux, Twitter, Twine, etc. My guess is I would have culture shock just going next door to talk to my neighbors, whose bubble is likely vastly different (if online at all).
So what? I live in my little niche, you live in yours, right? Live and let live?
Have a point in mind when you start a blog post, even if you have no readers.
Even not so recently, I knew that, essentially, google was my web portal. When I hopped online, I had some goal in mind, and knew that google could get me there. Recently, google's reader has become at least as important in my online experience. If I don't have some specific information I want to look up, the only page I think to visit is reader (and gmail I guess). Instead of going out to the web, rss and atom feeds have let me bring the web to me (Chris's comment, if I recall). When I've run out of new feeds, I'm at a loss of what to do, or where to go. There's lots of good stuff online, but if it isn't in a link from some feed, or so, I won't notice it. Perhaps that's ok. It is quite easy to suffer from information overload online, and there is plenty that I'm supposed to be doing.
Anybody else have similar online habits? Or am I doing it wrong? Fail? I guess part of my question is: what exactly is 'surfing the web'? Stubling around random webpages with a browser extension (= productivity killer)? Or just following links from pages that I visited with a specific goal in mind?
It seems like my style of surfing the web, by browsing my feeds, is, at least vaguely, dangerous. In a book I read recently (I think it was 'Ambient Findability' though it could have been 'Convergence Culture', both of which I enjoyed), the author pointed out the idea of the online experience being a great big echo chamber. I only see the part of the web I agree with, basically. Unless I specifically go searching for something contrary to my views (political or religious, e.g.) I am not likely to really test my ideas and assumptions. I won't grow, intellectually, but will instead just reinforce whatever ideas I already have, because they are all I read about.
What I feel like I notice even more is just the sense of being in a bubble. In my little bubble, everybody is keen on 'Web 2.0' (if not the name), the semantic web, open standards and APIs, tech, tech, tech. Everybody has heard of the same things as me (essentially). Things like OLPC, Linux, Twitter, Twine, etc. My guess is I would have culture shock just going next door to talk to my neighbors, whose bubble is likely vastly different (if online at all).
So what? I live in my little niche, you live in yours, right? Live and let live?
Have a point in mind when you start a blog post, even if you have no readers.
Why Teach Math?
Sometimes I sit in my classes, and wonder what I am getting out of the class that I couldn't get out of a book. One of my professors recently commented that faculty for math graduate students are really just guides. They have sat down, with all of the background knowledge they have about whatever subjects and possibly a few books to use as guidelines, and prepare for us a path through the theory. Perhaps sitting down at the start of the semester they think up a few key ideas or theorems they think we should know about some area, and then sit down to find a nice path between them all. Which I appreciate. Entering a new subject, I have no idea which of the multitude of books and resources are the 'best'. Which ones present the material in a manner that will give me insight and understanding? Surely, most of the definitions and results will be the same in any two books on the same topic. And I find it easy to forget that there's more to life than knowing definitions and theorems. Being able to look them up is easy (though a nice online database has potential to make it easier...), once you know basically what you want. But just staring at a list of new definitions and theorems isn't entirely helpful in itself. So the professors pick them out, and guide me through them. Which is awesome. With the understanding I get, I should be able to go back to those books and, even if I haven't picked out the 'best', be able to get much more out of it.
So that's nice. What about the math I teach? The stage I'm at now, I get to teach calculus. Should we focus on definitions and theorems for students who largely won't go into pure math? Should we just focus on computation and applications? How much should we let students have computers do the algebra and number crunching? What is the point of teaching the topic, if most students will forget it all after the semester and not use it again? Even for those that will re-use the information, I wonder if teaching the first 6 chapters of Stewart's Calculus book in a given semester is the best use of time. Shouldn't the student's be able to look up definitions and theorems and examples on their own, just like I can? If they can, what parts should I actually be teaching? And if they can't, how do I teach students how to learn math - how to process the information in a section of a textbook and be able to work similar problems, and moreover identify and understand the key ideas? In my setting, the courses are coordinated among several sections, with common exams. If I don't want my students to fail exams, I have to teach them all the facts they need, so how much of the time can I use teaching learning, versus teaching facts?
These problems get worse as technology enters the classroom. Students will literally have all of the definitions and results at their fingertips. A library of examples will be keystrokes away. And most of the examples we get them to do, they're exactly the sorts of things we made computers to do. Now I know that we want students to understand what's going on well enough that they can do some sanity check on whatever answers the computers return, and even be able to properly format a problem for a computer to be able to do it (a problem that I expect will decrease as computers become more intelligent).
Just recently I found this post on the BBC by Bill Thompson (whose posts I regularly enjoy) which discusses the changing face of teaching, focusing on the impact of technology. There he states that
This bit about 'providing a framework for understanding' feels, somehow, like a lot of the answer I was looking for. Newton stood on the shoulders of giants, and we want out students to have a similar footing. By showing students the information that is there, and guiding them through it, we help show them our viewpoint, hopefully from somewhere near those great shoulders.
So anyway, what is my point? Where am I going with this? Well, as I want to be a math professor, it seems important to think about just what I teach my students, and with what goals in mind. I remain in a state of uncertainty about the best way to do this. Balancing definitions and results with examples, and mixing technology in, is certainly a great challenge. But it is one I look forward to working on. One of these days I'd like to start having answers to all the questions I post here.
So that's nice. What about the math I teach? The stage I'm at now, I get to teach calculus. Should we focus on definitions and theorems for students who largely won't go into pure math? Should we just focus on computation and applications? How much should we let students have computers do the algebra and number crunching? What is the point of teaching the topic, if most students will forget it all after the semester and not use it again? Even for those that will re-use the information, I wonder if teaching the first 6 chapters of Stewart's Calculus book in a given semester is the best use of time. Shouldn't the student's be able to look up definitions and theorems and examples on their own, just like I can? If they can, what parts should I actually be teaching? And if they can't, how do I teach students how to learn math - how to process the information in a section of a textbook and be able to work similar problems, and moreover identify and understand the key ideas? In my setting, the courses are coordinated among several sections, with common exams. If I don't want my students to fail exams, I have to teach them all the facts they need, so how much of the time can I use teaching learning, versus teaching facts?
These problems get worse as technology enters the classroom. Students will literally have all of the definitions and results at their fingertips. A library of examples will be keystrokes away. And most of the examples we get them to do, they're exactly the sorts of things we made computers to do. Now I know that we want students to understand what's going on well enough that they can do some sanity check on whatever answers the computers return, and even be able to properly format a problem for a computer to be able to do it (a problem that I expect will decrease as computers become more intelligent).
Just recently I found this post on the BBC by Bill Thompson (whose posts I regularly enjoy) which discusses the changing face of teaching, focusing on the impact of technology. There he states that
... knowing facts provides a framework for understanding, a source of insight into problems and a way of boundary-checking solutions.
This bit about 'providing a framework for understanding' feels, somehow, like a lot of the answer I was looking for. Newton stood on the shoulders of giants, and we want out students to have a similar footing. By showing students the information that is there, and guiding them through it, we help show them our viewpoint, hopefully from somewhere near those great shoulders.
So anyway, what is my point? Where am I going with this? Well, as I want to be a math professor, it seems important to think about just what I teach my students, and with what goals in mind. I remain in a state of uncertainty about the best way to do this. Balancing definitions and results with examples, and mixing technology in, is certainly a great challenge. But it is one I look forward to working on. One of these days I'd like to start having answers to all the questions I post here.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Fandom and ARGs
I like to consider myself a fan of several things. The two I want to mention now are: (1) The Matrix, (2) Nine Inch Nails. Part of the reason I've been thinking about these things is that I relatively recently read 'Convergence Culture' by Henry Jenkins, which I encourage you to check out.
Ok, so I know The Matrix isn't really news. But when the first came out in 1999, I saw it many times in theatres, and have watched it many more times since. Same goes for all the other releases (well, I guess I missed the animatrix in theatres). Anyway, they're all good stuff, both as plain old entertainment as well as thought provoking works (I wish I had an ample vocabulary). What I'm trying to say is that I mostly think I'm a bigger fan than most. However, I never read the associated comic books, nor played the video games. So am I just fooling myself? Or was the scope of the project, its many facets, too large for even a supposedly loyal fan? Of course, that's a stupid thing to wonder. The people in charge were artists, using a new form (a combination of forms) to display their work. Who am I to wish they hadn't done as much? I sincerely hope that many people out there engrossed themselves more fully in the world of the matrix than I did. I hope the artist's full work was appreciated. Perhaps I'm just more a fan of being stubborn and lazy than I am of the movies (well, the whole artwork). I could have, after all, played the video games (and now that I know about them, I'd like to check out the comics) and read more of the things online... etc. etc. etc. When I think about it, I wonder what, if the matrix couldn't, would get me to play a video game to more fully engross myself in a story, or piece or art. I haven't really come up with anything, though I have been wondering about this game spore for a while. I mostly only like little video games, dr. mario, for example.
Onto item 2. I've mentioned several times my draw to nine inch nails. I own most of their 'halo's, including many of the singles. However, when their Alternate Reality Game (ARG) came out for year zero, I didn't do much about it. I remember spending a day or two looking at what was around, about messages on t-shirts and messages in Morse code in songs. I visited many of the links, reading supposed files about 'The Presence', and 'Opal'... And then I lost interest. I couldn't tell how I was supposed to participate. I don't have any real skills at all, so I don't expect I could have helped find hidden messages or anything. Plus, I'm kinda lazy (I just started reading a book 'How to be Idle', by a Hodgkinson, so perhaps you'll hear more about this in the near future), and not particularly creative (though I'm realizing that I like to create - through origami, programming, even this blog nobody reads (over-inflated self worth strikes again)). So, again, what happened? Am I not a fan enough to keep up with and immerse myself in these things? Or did this one particular game end earlier than expected? I looked at things again recently, and something said it was supposed to be an 18 month time frame for the game. So is there more to come in the next couple of months? We've got til... September/October I think. Perhaps this ghosts release is part of it all. I hope so, but my initial impression is that it is just Trent wanting to make some music (which I am, of course, happy to listen to). I'd be happy to be wrong, perhaps there are messages floating around in all of these new tracks. I should go look...
So anyway, what's the deal? Am I just too damn lazy to be allowed to consider myself a fan? Too old school and set in my ways to play with these relatively new avenues of entertainment? I mean, I don't care at all for text messages (or phones in general), and don't quite see the point of 'micro-blogging' or 'lifestreaming' sorts of sites. So am I not really keeping pace with technology these days, despite what I'd like to think? It is my impression that these ARG things are a relatively new form of media (again, see 'Convergence Culture'). In that case, perhaps whatever recipe for them hasn't quite been worked out yet? Maybe they won't even pan out as a trend? I mean, my understanding of them goes like this: a group of people sit down and try to create a puzzle for, essentially, everybody to solve. Of course, not everybody will hear about it, or care, or participate. But my point is that the intended audience is much larger than the group creating the puzzle. So... that group better be _quite_ impressive at puzzle-making in order to be able to entertain a significantly larger audience. I'm not saying it can't be done. But maybe, assuming it is a newish sort of venture, the puzzle creators could still use some more practice? Of course, I recognize that as a hugely arrogant thing to say, and must refer you back to the Matrix paragraph, about the creators being artists, who should be encouraged to make what they want.
News from wired today about a possible new ARG starting with some relation to McDonald's and the coming summer Olympics. Perhaps this'll be a big turning point for the medium? I mean, everybody has heard of both McDonald's and the Olympics, while a drastically fewer number have heard of Mr. Reznor.
Ok, so I know The Matrix isn't really news. But when the first came out in 1999, I saw it many times in theatres, and have watched it many more times since. Same goes for all the other releases (well, I guess I missed the animatrix in theatres). Anyway, they're all good stuff, both as plain old entertainment as well as thought provoking works (I wish I had an ample vocabulary). What I'm trying to say is that I mostly think I'm a bigger fan than most. However, I never read the associated comic books, nor played the video games. So am I just fooling myself? Or was the scope of the project, its many facets, too large for even a supposedly loyal fan? Of course, that's a stupid thing to wonder. The people in charge were artists, using a new form (a combination of forms) to display their work. Who am I to wish they hadn't done as much? I sincerely hope that many people out there engrossed themselves more fully in the world of the matrix than I did. I hope the artist's full work was appreciated. Perhaps I'm just more a fan of being stubborn and lazy than I am of the movies (well, the whole artwork). I could have, after all, played the video games (and now that I know about them, I'd like to check out the comics) and read more of the things online... etc. etc. etc. When I think about it, I wonder what, if the matrix couldn't, would get me to play a video game to more fully engross myself in a story, or piece or art. I haven't really come up with anything, though I have been wondering about this game spore for a while. I mostly only like little video games, dr. mario, for example.
Onto item 2. I've mentioned several times my draw to nine inch nails. I own most of their 'halo's, including many of the singles. However, when their Alternate Reality Game (ARG) came out for year zero, I didn't do much about it. I remember spending a day or two looking at what was around, about messages on t-shirts and messages in Morse code in songs. I visited many of the links, reading supposed files about 'The Presence', and 'Opal'... And then I lost interest. I couldn't tell how I was supposed to participate. I don't have any real skills at all, so I don't expect I could have helped find hidden messages or anything. Plus, I'm kinda lazy (I just started reading a book 'How to be Idle', by a Hodgkinson, so perhaps you'll hear more about this in the near future), and not particularly creative (though I'm realizing that I like to create - through origami, programming, even this blog nobody reads (over-inflated self worth strikes again)). So, again, what happened? Am I not a fan enough to keep up with and immerse myself in these things? Or did this one particular game end earlier than expected? I looked at things again recently, and something said it was supposed to be an 18 month time frame for the game. So is there more to come in the next couple of months? We've got til... September/October I think. Perhaps this ghosts release is part of it all. I hope so, but my initial impression is that it is just Trent wanting to make some music (which I am, of course, happy to listen to). I'd be happy to be wrong, perhaps there are messages floating around in all of these new tracks. I should go look...
So anyway, what's the deal? Am I just too damn lazy to be allowed to consider myself a fan? Too old school and set in my ways to play with these relatively new avenues of entertainment? I mean, I don't care at all for text messages (or phones in general), and don't quite see the point of 'micro-blogging' or 'lifestreaming' sorts of sites. So am I not really keeping pace with technology these days, despite what I'd like to think? It is my impression that these ARG things are a relatively new form of media (again, see 'Convergence Culture'). In that case, perhaps whatever recipe for them hasn't quite been worked out yet? Maybe they won't even pan out as a trend? I mean, my understanding of them goes like this: a group of people sit down and try to create a puzzle for, essentially, everybody to solve. Of course, not everybody will hear about it, or care, or participate. But my point is that the intended audience is much larger than the group creating the puzzle. So... that group better be _quite_ impressive at puzzle-making in order to be able to entertain a significantly larger audience. I'm not saying it can't be done. But maybe, assuming it is a newish sort of venture, the puzzle creators could still use some more practice? Of course, I recognize that as a hugely arrogant thing to say, and must refer you back to the Matrix paragraph, about the creators being artists, who should be encouraged to make what they want.
News from wired today about a possible new ARG starting with some relation to McDonald's and the coming summer Olympics. Perhaps this'll be a big turning point for the medium? I mean, everybody has heard of both McDonald's and the Olympics, while a drastically fewer number have heard of Mr. Reznor.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Free Stuff
There are currently a plethora of commercials for medical products, many of which offer free trials. I never have trusted these sorts of products. One of the commercials has somebody saying 'if its free, it must be good', and I always scoff. However, it occurred to me recently that I have basically the opposite view with software. Most (all?) of the software I use at home is from the Free/Open Source community. I'm always encouraging people to use such software (firefox, linux in particular).
So why the difference? Am I just a huge hypocrite? Do I not really believe, deep down, in the FOSS movement?
I hope not. I think the difference is that the medical products are given away in hopes that people will spend lots of money later. And it is my impression that most people are fairly gullible about lots of the medical (and dietary) crap these days, and I feel like the companies are preying on, and encouraging, this. Alternatively, 'free' (as in speech) software comes from a community that wishes to make great software, and happen to believe that the software should be available to use and modify and redistribute without restriction. Damn hippies. :)
So why the difference? Am I just a huge hypocrite? Do I not really believe, deep down, in the FOSS movement?
I hope not. I think the difference is that the medical products are given away in hopes that people will spend lots of money later. And it is my impression that most people are fairly gullible about lots of the medical (and dietary) crap these days, and I feel like the companies are preying on, and encouraging, this. Alternatively, 'free' (as in speech) software comes from a community that wishes to make great software, and happen to believe that the software should be available to use and modify and redistribute without restriction. Damn hippies. :)
Online Stars
For no particular reason, with no particular goal in mind, I've been thinking a little about star ratings (perhaps by writing something down here, I can free up those mental cycles for something I should actually be thinking about, like my research). Like in Netflix, you're supposed to rate a movie 1-5 stars. But I expect everybody has a different idea what those stars mean. For example, I've given very few movies 1 (though I do use 'not interested' for some movies I haven't seen). I interpret 2 as 'I wish I hadn't bothered sitting through that' (which I've hardly used), while 4 is 'I'd happily watch that again' and 5 is along the lines of 'I actively enjoyed that movie' or 'I'd consider owning that'. I left out 3, which is kinda my default if I don't really care. My point, though, is probably other people use different interpretations, maybe handing out more 5s or 1s, or fewer 3s. How do you interpret the netflix stars?
What's important, then, from a recommendation viewpoint, is not the actual rating, but the relative rating. If I give a movie a 3, that doesn't really mean anything by itself. It only means something in the context of all the other movies I've rated higher and lower. Movie ratings (and other such ratings) don't really form a poset; there is no absolute grading, only a relative grading. I'm sure if you are competing for the netflix prize, this isn't a new (or even worth-pointing-out) observation.
In my daily online experience, stars also come up in google reader (and occasionally in the web history or gmail). There they act only as a flag, a binary 'starred' versus 'unstarred'. And it's handy (especially with the 's' keyboard shortcut). What I'd like to see, especially in combination with the keyboard shortcuts experimental search option in google, is a 's' shortcut to star search results from google. Even without keyboard shortcuts on, just put the little star next to items so I could click to star/unstar them. This then gets saved in the web history bookmarks, just like if I'd gone in manually after the search and starred an item that I had clicked on. This is a lot easier than copying links into my google notebook, for example. I suppose I could check out the google notebook browser extension again, but I'm kinda not hugely keen on using browser extensions much. I'm not sure why.
Also, with the keyboard shortcuts experimental search feature in google, the 'O' shortcut opens the link in a new tab. But in my firefox, it doesn't open in the background (like it would if I middle-clicked). Is this the case for other people, or do I have something set up poorly? How do I change it?
While I'm at it, in an earlier post I mentioned how to easily use the keyboard shortcuts feature in google. I was just looking around today, and if you have a google account, there's an even easier way. At the experimental search labs page, just click 'Join this experiment'. I think I'm going to like this. At my office, I didn't configure my google keyword shortcut in firefox, so I don't have the keyboard shortcuts. But now, after I log in to google (which I'd do to check mail anyway), I'm expecting that I'll have those shortcuts. Hurray!
What's important, then, from a recommendation viewpoint, is not the actual rating, but the relative rating. If I give a movie a 3, that doesn't really mean anything by itself. It only means something in the context of all the other movies I've rated higher and lower. Movie ratings (and other such ratings) don't really form a poset; there is no absolute grading, only a relative grading. I'm sure if you are competing for the netflix prize, this isn't a new (or even worth-pointing-out) observation.
In my daily online experience, stars also come up in google reader (and occasionally in the web history or gmail). There they act only as a flag, a binary 'starred' versus 'unstarred'. And it's handy (especially with the 's' keyboard shortcut). What I'd like to see, especially in combination with the keyboard shortcuts experimental search option in google, is a 's' shortcut to star search results from google. Even without keyboard shortcuts on, just put the little star next to items so I could click to star/unstar them. This then gets saved in the web history bookmarks, just like if I'd gone in manually after the search and starred an item that I had clicked on. This is a lot easier than copying links into my google notebook, for example. I suppose I could check out the google notebook browser extension again, but I'm kinda not hugely keen on using browser extensions much. I'm not sure why.
Also, with the keyboard shortcuts experimental search feature in google, the 'O' shortcut opens the link in a new tab. But in my firefox, it doesn't open in the background (like it would if I middle-clicked). Is this the case for other people, or do I have something set up poorly? How do I change it?
While I'm at it, in an earlier post I mentioned how to easily use the keyboard shortcuts feature in google. I was just looking around today, and if you have a google account, there's an even easier way. At the experimental search labs page, just click 'Join this experiment'. I think I'm going to like this. At my office, I didn't configure my google keyword shortcut in firefox, so I don't have the keyboard shortcuts. But now, after I log in to google (which I'd do to check mail anyway), I'm expecting that I'll have those shortcuts. Hurray!
Friday, January 4, 2008
Pointlessness
So over the break, at our big family get-together, relatives asked me what I did, and also my sister. "I teach calculus, and am supposed to be doing research" - that's me. "I'm working on things associated with progeria" - that's her (of course, in her conversation she didn't link to wikipedia). All paraphrased, clearly.
I just found it amusing that my sister was doing things that will have an actual, significant, impact on other people's lives. She could, for all I know, be saving lives. Me? I'm making students miserable talking to them about things they don't mostly care about, and then grading them on it. And my research? Like lots of mathematics, the things I'm looking at are completely non-applicable to the real world.
Which reminds me - why do I get paid again? I don't remember the last math paper I read, for my own work, with real-world applications. How many mathematicians removed am I from the real world? How many theorems away - that is, what is the theorem 'nearest' the things I am looking at that is still applicable to some real-world setting? Even just the nearest general theory? I guess knot theory is the closest, though I've heard rumors that category theory has computer science applications. I've not seen anything serious, but I can't say I've spent a whole lot of time looking. But anyway, I don't anticipate any of my work to be close to any of this, and I don't expect any of the ideas to trickle down somewhere useful, even for decades upon decades (and with the coming singularity, or weather issues, how many decades do we have left?). Oh, so I guess I must get paid for teaching (and the research somehow makes me a better teacher?). But these kids are bright enough, they could be reading it from the book. Even if they don't think they could. And anyway, I'll be quite suprised if more than 1 or 2 use anything I teach outside of other classes.
Anyway, off to bed. Gotta get up and teach in the morning :)
I just found it amusing that my sister was doing things that will have an actual, significant, impact on other people's lives. She could, for all I know, be saving lives. Me? I'm making students miserable talking to them about things they don't mostly care about, and then grading them on it. And my research? Like lots of mathematics, the things I'm looking at are completely non-applicable to the real world.
Which reminds me - why do I get paid again? I don't remember the last math paper I read, for my own work, with real-world applications. How many mathematicians removed am I from the real world? How many theorems away - that is, what is the theorem 'nearest' the things I am looking at that is still applicable to some real-world setting? Even just the nearest general theory? I guess knot theory is the closest, though I've heard rumors that category theory has computer science applications. I've not seen anything serious, but I can't say I've spent a whole lot of time looking. But anyway, I don't anticipate any of my work to be close to any of this, and I don't expect any of the ideas to trickle down somewhere useful, even for decades upon decades (and with the coming singularity, or weather issues, how many decades do we have left?). Oh, so I guess I must get paid for teaching (and the research somehow makes me a better teacher?). But these kids are bright enough, they could be reading it from the book. Even if they don't think they could. And anyway, I'll be quite suprised if more than 1 or 2 use anything I teach outside of other classes.
Anyway, off to bed. Gotta get up and teach in the morning :)
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Ice Cream Fueled Musings
Back from my ice cream. Since I don't seem to be directing my energies at math today, I thought I'd keeping rambling here. So, I can't decide what to do about charitable donations. I'm sure I should, basically because I can. But how do I know who to give my money to? Is there a poset of charities I can consult, ordered somehow that lets me pick a 'best' (perhaps from some small several of maximal elements) choice? Who set up this poset, and how did they decide? Is there some global cause bank, where all the charity agencies (what qualifies?) can just turn and submit proposals for money? So I could just submit my money to this central hub, and let them decide what to do with it? What's the (is there a?) world bank? What does the UN actually do, and do they have a role in this? If I actually cared, wouldn't I start looking things up? Or am I just a (stereotypically?) self-centered ass hole American? By making this blog, haven't I exhibited my self-centered-ness?
And why do we still have nations? Are they really necessary? Aren't we all members of a global community? Where's Einstein's (didn't he say something about this?) passport as a citizen of the world? Where's mine? Doesn't segregating people based on birth place lead to stereotyping and pride and prejudice (not the book, certainly not the movie)? Or is stereotyping an (necessary?) evolutionary trait that helps us survive our monkeysphere? Even if nations really are that important, instead of just geographic identifiers for somebody's current location, why can't we have a global currency? Or a global language? I'm perfectly happy preserving local flair by making everybody learn their nation's language(s). I'm not asking people to become all the same, that's stupid. But couldn't we also teach our children, while they grow up, some global language, like esperanto or something? [Update 12/21: I'm not against the idea of dividing regions up into nations, states, provinces. I can see that this makes local government, and preservation of culture and such, easier. What I'm against is... raging, unreasoned patriotism I guess. I don't know. I don't think about it that much, honestly.]
Back to charities, in typically stream of thought rambling. Aren't I living on a charity? What are you doing with your life that's so deserving of pay? I mean, why should I get paid to learn about the calculus of functors? More generally, why should mathematicians get paid at all to do "pure math"? What should I be doing to actually earn my living? Maybe I'm getting paid to be a teacher, and need to do research so that I can present my topic better to my students. But if my students follow in my footsteps toward pure math, or never use the math I teach them again, then why should I get paid to teach? If I want to make some difference (if such a thing can actually be made, or we even have time to make it - when's that apocalypse people have been calling for?) shouldn't I give up all my personal interests, and basically give up myself? To who? For what? Why bother?
While I'm talking about teaching, here at the end of the semester, how do I best determine a student's final grade? Take my calculus class for example. I had weekly written homework, daily online homework (using webwork), weakly quizzes, two midterms and a final. There were 250-300ish points for each type of homework, 100ish points for quizzes, 100 for each midterm, and 150 for the final. If quizzes were 5%, written homework 12%, webwork 13%, each midterm 20%, and the final 30% of the final grade, how many decimal places of their final grade is actually meaningful?
Wow. I feel like a philosopher or somebody else I might not respect. All these questions without answers. Probably most of them entirely unanswerable. Maybe I should just pick a cause and move on. Throw a bunch into a hat. I mean look, I just wasted at least the last hour or two or three thinking about and writing these things. Not to mention the 12 hours of sleep I got last night. Shouldn't I have been learning math to get my phd so I can go teach kids who will promptly forget all of the ivory-towerish things I say? Or at the grocery store buying food to donate to some homeless person living under a bridge here in cold and rainy cville? Setting up, or finding, a global fund for charities? Finding somewhere isolated and living as part of nature? Answering some of these damn questions?
And why do we still have nations? Are they really necessary? Aren't we all members of a global community? Where's Einstein's (didn't he say something about this?) passport as a citizen of the world? Where's mine? Doesn't segregating people based on birth place lead to stereotyping and pride and prejudice (not the book, certainly not the movie)? Or is stereotyping an (necessary?) evolutionary trait that helps us survive our monkeysphere? Even if nations really are that important, instead of just geographic identifiers for somebody's current location, why can't we have a global currency? Or a global language? I'm perfectly happy preserving local flair by making everybody learn their nation's language(s). I'm not asking people to become all the same, that's stupid. But couldn't we also teach our children, while they grow up, some global language, like esperanto or something? [Update 12/21: I'm not against the idea of dividing regions up into nations, states, provinces. I can see that this makes local government, and preservation of culture and such, easier. What I'm against is... raging, unreasoned patriotism I guess. I don't know. I don't think about it that much, honestly.]
Back to charities, in typically stream of thought rambling. Aren't I living on a charity? What are you doing with your life that's so deserving of pay? I mean, why should I get paid to learn about the calculus of functors? More generally, why should mathematicians get paid at all to do "pure math"? What should I be doing to actually earn my living? Maybe I'm getting paid to be a teacher, and need to do research so that I can present my topic better to my students. But if my students follow in my footsteps toward pure math, or never use the math I teach them again, then why should I get paid to teach? If I want to make some difference (if such a thing can actually be made, or we even have time to make it - when's that apocalypse people have been calling for?) shouldn't I give up all my personal interests, and basically give up myself? To who? For what? Why bother?
While I'm talking about teaching, here at the end of the semester, how do I best determine a student's final grade? Take my calculus class for example. I had weekly written homework, daily online homework (using webwork), weakly quizzes, two midterms and a final. There were 250-300ish points for each type of homework, 100ish points for quizzes, 100 for each midterm, and 150 for the final. If quizzes were 5%, written homework 12%, webwork 13%, each midterm 20%, and the final 30% of the final grade, how many decimal places of their final grade is actually meaningful?
Wow. I feel like a philosopher or somebody else I might not respect. All these questions without answers. Probably most of them entirely unanswerable. Maybe I should just pick a cause and move on. Throw a bunch into a hat. I mean look, I just wasted at least the last hour or two or three thinking about and writing these things. Not to mention the 12 hours of sleep I got last night. Shouldn't I have been learning math to get my phd so I can go teach kids who will promptly forget all of the ivory-towerish things I say? Or at the grocery store buying food to donate to some homeless person living under a bridge here in cold and rainy cville? Setting up, or finding, a global fund for charities? Finding somewhere isolated and living as part of nature? Answering some of these damn questions?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Thompson v. Dvorak, OLPC
Yesterday's news, but I was tired yesterday from doing calc stuff: Bill Thompson, at BBC, replied to Dvorak's recent remarks about the OLPC program. And Thompson didn't agree with Dvorak; he thinks its a worthwhile program. I also like to think (hope) so. Because I like to think about getting an XO laptop (and therefore giving one). Still debating about it. With the $400 I could also get a nice couch I found at World Market today. The Studio Day Sofa looks to be what I've been thinking I want in some furniture, the next time I think about buying such a thing. If anybody knows of the same shape thing somewhere else for cheaper, I'd be happy to hear about it. Maybe someday I'll peak in an IKEA. Since this summer I'm moving for the 3rd time since getting to grad school, I'm not really looking to buy much in the way of heavy things to lift. Laptops aren't that heavy.
I almost forgot to mention another thought this debate sparked. It illustrates one of the things that draws me to math. In math, there really aren't that many arguments without a winner. If two people are arguing about the correctness of a statement, either they are both wrong, or exactly one is right. Clearly this is not the case in the real world. At least, this is the picture I have of the subject. Perhaps with more experience, I'll learn otherwise. But I certainly hope not. While I'm on the subject of arguments without winners, I'm tempted to touch on religion. But people get more riled up about that than laptops or math, and I don't really feel like (or see the point in) arguing with them.
I almost forgot to mention another thought this debate sparked. It illustrates one of the things that draws me to math. In math, there really aren't that many arguments without a winner. If two people are arguing about the correctness of a statement, either they are both wrong, or exactly one is right. Clearly this is not the case in the real world. At least, this is the picture I have of the subject. Perhaps with more experience, I'll learn otherwise. But I certainly hope not. While I'm on the subject of arguments without winners, I'm tempted to touch on religion. But people get more riled up about that than laptops or math, and I don't really feel like (or see the point in) arguing with them.
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